Thursday, July 24, 2008

Friday's NASCAR TV Mess

Here we go with the channel surfing and the DVR programming for the NASCAR at Indy weekend. This is the recently changed Friday line-up. You may choose to take notes.

SPEED starts at 1PM ET with NASCAR Live. It will be Steve Byrnes, Jeff Hammond and Larry McReynolds at the SPEED Stage for this one hour live news and information show. Randy Pemberton and Hermie Sadler will report from the garage. The fun part is next.

At 2PM, it will be SPEED carrying the early session of Sprint Cup practice. I know that this was not reflected in the SPEEDtv.com schedule, but trust me...it is there. More info on this will appear next week in a column. Byrnes, Hammond and McReynolds will actually voice-over the practice from the SPEED Stage. Bob Dillner and Wendy Venturini will be handling the interviews as reporters.

Somehow, the early Sprint Cup practice at Indy found a live national TV home.

The ESPN gang will be up next with the second half of Cup practice and it will be shown on ESPN2 at 3:30PM. The entire crew will be on-hand led by Allen Bestwick in the infield and Jerry Punch in the announce booth. This coverage will last one hour.

At 4:30PM it will be SPEED picking-up with post-practice interviews as they originate a thirty minute version of NASCAR Live. Byrnes will host with Dillner reporting and he will be joined in the garage by John Roberts.

At 5PM it is time for the Craftsman Trucks to qualify over at O'Reilly Raceway Park on the other side of Indy. Rick Allen and Phil Parsons will call the action with Ray Dunlap and Adam Alexander patrolling the garage and pit road.

It is decision time for fans as NASCAR Now is next at 6PM on ESPN2. Ryan Burr hosts from Bristol, CT with Allen Bestwick, Marty Smith and Nicole Manske reporting from The Brickyard. This is a special one hour live edition that should feature a lot of information and interviews.

Halfway through NASCAR Now, Trackside begins over on SPEED at 6:30PM. Byrnes, McReynolds, Hammond and Elliott Sadler make-up the Indy panel. Mark Martin and Travis Kvapil will be the two guests at the SPEED Stage.

Lots of fans are waiting for the final episode of Shifting Gears at 7PM on ESPN. This is Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s original production from his Hammerhead Entertainment company and is the last of five episodes. The show is one hour in length and should be well worth watching or recording.

Things get racy at 7:30PM with The Set-Up on SPEED. Krista Voda hosts this thirty minute pre-race show for the NCTS. Allen and Parsons return to call the live racing action from ORP at 7:30PM.

For those of you who missed it the first time around, the NASCAR Confidential show that looks at the inner-workings of NASCAR officials and even Race Control will re-air at 10:30PM or immediately after the NCTS race concludes on SPEED. It is well worth watching.

Weekend Notes:Saturday at 1:30PM - McReynolds and NASCAR Performance on SPEEDSaturday at 2PM - She's back! Jenna Fryer of the AP on Tradin' Paint on SPEEDSunday at 11AM - Tony Stewart will be a live guest on RaceDay on SPEED

We will try to keep this post updated with any changes due to weather or scheduling on Friday. This is always a hectic TV weekend with all three series in the same town at two tracks. If you see an error or something changes, please feel free to drop me an email at the address on the main page to keep us updated.

This post will serve to let you voice your opinions about the TV scheduling on this Indy Friday. Fans without the ability to record one show while watching another are going to be making tough choices between good programs. It should be very interesting to watch all of this unfold live.

To add your comment, simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page. Thanks again for taking the time to stop by.

Major thank you to whoever orchestrated this last minute decision to move the first 90 minutes of Cup practice from no TV coverage at all to Speed Channel.

I'm just hoping this will continue the rest of the year and that any time ESPN can't commit to covering a practice/qualifying session live and in its entirety it will air live on Speed instead.

And then hopefully by '09 ESPN will be completely phased out of practice and qualifying altogether and we can return to the normalcy of a full season of every Cup practice and qualifying session being live on Speed every weekend.

Great first step in cooperating NASCAR TV partners, please work towards making sure this becomes a regular occurence throughout the rest of the season and that Friday is not just a one-time exception because of the magnitude of the Brickyard.

Really Bevo! You use to need it for driver changes as we headed to Daytona and mid-season...now you need it to know what channel what comes on and when. And if you don't have a dual DVR/TiVo what is not "important" and OK to miss.

Kasey Kahne is scheduled to be on the Regis and Kelly talk show within the next hour, probably around 9:30 or 9:40 am.

I believe it is his first individual appearance by himself on a "mainstream" talk show, so they're obviously trying to take him the Jeff Gordon route by booking him on Regis/Kelly. The other drivers who have appeared on R/K for solo interviews within the past few years are Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jeff Gordon has been a guest as well as a frequent co-host.

It'll be interesting to see if Kasey can talk "normally" in this environment without too many autopilot sponsor plugs mixed in. Hopefully he'll do well.

Simple really . The shows all have different hosts and reporters , but they all cover the very same stories in almost the exact same way . So after watching the one show of your choice , turn off the set and do something constructive . Speaking of hosts and reporters , can anyone tell me why they speak in such an exagerated and abnormal way . Why do broadcasting schools teach this ? When drivers are interviewed they don't use AM radio voice modulation , yet they are certainly interesting to listen to .

Thanks for the info about Kasey. I just switched over from the Today Show and Kasey just came out.

Anon@9:12 said: "Jeff Gordon has been a guest as well as a frequent co-host."

For the first time ever, Jeff outranked Dale Jr in the "America's Favorite Athletes" poll they do every year in June. Jeff was 5th (behind Woods, Jordan, Favre, Kobe Bryant) and Jr. was 6th. (and Jr's former PR guy doesn't sound too happy about it in his blog!)

I wonder if all those magazine covers and "Live with Regis and Kelly" appearance finally put Jeff over the top. Jeff's been in the top 10 before, but he's always been ranked below Jr.

Good to see two NASCAR drivers in that poll, only one baseball player made it. (Jeter).

WOW - I am really realizing just how spoiled I was with having Speed at my home in Chicago. I'm working in NYC and my corp apt does not have it and I am really missing out on most things nascar!! I do have ESPN, but Speed just seems to have the majority of the programming (or ESPN's shows are on early while I'm at work and not replayed later). Guess I'm taking a break from nascar (other than the races on Sundays) for the rest of the year...this totally sucks!!

My DVR is really getting a workout this friday while I'm off trying to earn enough to pay that cable bill. It will be interesting to see the difference between how Speed and ESPN cover cup practice. If ESPN sticks with the same format as last year I will be disappointed. Hopefully they learned for their mistakes.

Aw, man...Kasey didn't make the best impression on "Live with Regis and Kelly" IMO. The phrase "pulling teeth" comes to mind, though Kelly and David Ducovny from X-Files(sp? He's the guest co-host) were very nice and tried to ask questions about his childhood and his family. The audience was also very receptive and appeared to have heard of him before, based on some of the screaming girls.

Poor Kasey was simply too nervous and barely cracked a smile (that was the bad part, he barely smiled or laughed the entire time, which made him look kind of bad), and kept fidgeting with his hands.

Maybe he'll improve...at some point. But I doubt he'll get asked back on that show unless he wins the Cup and they have to ask him back. I know Kasey is the NASCAR heartthrob (Kelly called him that on the show today), but I think Kyle Busch or Carl Edwards would be better on TV.

I am watching ESPN news (which I have never done before) looking for the Stewart press conference and they show a 5 minute segment with bestwick, rusty and brad at Indy talking about this weekends 2 races (yes 2, no mention of the trucks) and I thought, "Cool they are putting some effort into it now". Then at the end bestwick says, "The tracks empty now, on thursday, but we will see lots of fans tomorrow..." (paraphrased) and I realized - its just a dang canned piece! If they were at the track to do that yesterday, why aint they there today to cover Stewart?

anon 9:15...LOL! No kidding, so much of it is repetitive I rarely bother to record, I just channel surf (not to mention, doing other things around the house.) I really don't think one misses that much....there is a such thing as 'speculation' overload, not to mention, so much of the time they pick one thing to harp on...and then when the actual race comes around, none of it has any significance at all when 'whoever' blows a tire in the first 10 laps or they think 20 tires are going to blow and it never happens. I guess I'm feeling cynical today! The 'radio' voices don't bother me that much though.

Race Talk Radio was going to broadcast Tony's press conference live on the net. For some reason they didn't get the feed and were pretty embarrassed about it. They also alluded that Speed was going to show it but couldn't get the feed either.

I'm not sure anyone saw it. NASCAR Live hasn't even brought it up so far.

@stricklinfan82--agreed. I wouldn't be against having SPEED take over for the future and I also hope they're able to work together to bring us practice/HH that otherwise would be missed. We really need a network we can count on and not one that will "push" it aside if a live show or two runs over. I forget which HH it was, but there was one that was pushed to like 12:30 AM due to the Busch Race running over. I know a few folks who recorded and some east coast folks who stayed up and were pissed...because they didn't announce earlier that they'd be interrupting half way for some silly baseball show that could have waited.

I took notes and Tivo'd what I couldn't watch. What a hopscotch mess today. Thanks to the powers that be that let us see practice.I really hope this is not a preview of the rest of the season, I want to see practice (thanks again) I just don't want to have to preprogram like I did today!I really had to work to get it all in.Espn news didn't show the press conf here, nor did Speed - it would have been nice....